Thoughts on Nothing
by Azelf1717
Summary: Xemnas ponders the differences between light, darkness, and nothing in front of Kingdom Hearts before becoming what nothing truly is.   In honor of Xemnas day 1/1.


Nothing.

One word, one sentence.

Xemnas stood where he normally stood at the Altar of Naught. He came to speak with Kingdom Hearts. Unlike most days of which he would speak his mind today he remained silent. Silence was nothing, and nothing was what he was.

Nothing broke the silence cast, and the silence remained unbroken, just as he had expected. He didn't feel certainty about his expectations though. He merely calculated what he expected. He couldn't feel. In the truth of reality he was aware that he felt nothing. He felt nothing as a whole. There was nothing else to feel after all.

Even though he didn't feel he knew what those with hearts felt. They felt anger. They felt hatred. They felt envy. The heart was composed of negativity, and positivity was a mere illusion of negativity. He knew that for certain even if he could not feel certain. He was an intelligent being that nothing was superior over, so he knew. Happiness was a shadow created by anger. Love was a shadow of a heart's true hatred. Kindness was a shadow of hidden envy.

The concept of positive emotions being the core of a heart was ludicrous, but his Keyblade wielders all seemed to believe that.

Those Keyblade wielders that were collecting hearts for him were so engrossed in their light that they could not see this; especially that Sora. They all basked in the light so much that they had made themselves blind to the heart's true nature. Any emotion that they considered negative they immediately considered darkness. They didn't want to accept the truth of their hearts. They all preferred believing that their hearts were what they were not. They did at one point at least. Both Riku and that king whom was associated with his former mentor seemed to have gained different views on darkness. Sora did as well, but he could tell that the boy still favored light. That favoring reminded him of someone that he could not quite remember all that well. He had pondered about that person before with nothing to show as a result. The only thing he gained from entertaining that muse was gaining the sense that the unknown person must have been someone his Somebody admired, but maybe blindly. That person didn't matter anymore though.

Xemnas believed that he would have found all of his Keyblade wielders' theories of darkness entertaining if he had a heart. He was the master of nothing yes, but he knew the darkness as well. The darkness didn't create negative emotions, but it instead fed off of them. Negative emotions were, after all, the core of hearts, so that simply had to be the reason for why darkness did that. To him, The Superior of the In-Between, this subject was so simple. Yet humans seemed to confuse darkness with so many other things, namely evil. He remembered a friend confused it with rage. Darkness merely found people through evil, their evil. Their core. Their source. The source. Darkness met with a person from their source; the hidden truths of their hearts. Even though he wasn't the same as he was when he was Xehanort he still had a fine understanding of what created nothing.

That was right. Darkness created nothing, just as light would create shadows. Without light darkness was merely darkness. There was no light to cast a shadow after all. Without sunlight a man would stand by his lonesome, nothing to hide his true nature. Although with light the man would embrace it and hide his darkness behind himself, away from the light.

Shadows were different then darkness. They were created in the light. Darkness always existed. It existed around everything, in everyone, and in nothing. With light shadows were created as darkness became similar to nothing. Shadows were, as the title suggested, shadows of what once was. The darkness was still there. The light didn't eliminate the darkness. It just smothered it. Whenever light wasn't covering a specific area the shadows of darkness tried to emerge. The darkness, no matter how much it tried, could never pass light. If the light were to hit a shadowed spot then the shadows would instantly disappear. The shadows were the pitiful remains of darkness that could still be seen, but the darkness would always disappear into nothing.

Darkness itself still existed. While the shadows were the only thing that could be seen in the light without a heart's interference the heart itself was home to darkness. Darkness fed off of its core after all, and that's what created it. The shadows that lurked behind a person also hinted at the ones inside of a person's heart. Darkness lurked inside of a person, and that's how it managed to survive with the light around.

Then again if the light were to truly be alone the darkness would be completely nothing. Light couldn't exist without darkness. It wouldn't be possible for light to exist without darkness since shadows were always present in light, and since they were outlets of darkness, light would become nothing. Nothing was nothing, and darkness was nothing. If light were nothing then it would be just like darkness. He didn't believe that light and darkness were the same. Darkness was the truth of the heart while light was the falsehood of the heart.

His old mentor believed the opposite. He couldn't remember everything from his Somebody's existence as he had amnesia, but he could remember everything from after that. Even way back then all those years ago he could see that Ansem the Wise favored light. He said he sought knowledge to protect Radiant Garden, but he knew that his mentor simply sought knowledge. He just didn't want to admit it to himself that his heart was darker than the so wise proclaimed.

Every Somebody seemed to stray from their true nature, even Sora. Sora was a… stimulating muse of a sort, to say the very least. He was named after the one thing that was limitless yet he himself remained the opposite, and everyone acted like he was limitless. It reminded him of someone. A friend.

There was a noise that pierced the silence. Oh… there they were; they were here now. The reason he didn't immediately tell Kingdom Hearts his musings was because he was waiting for them. The Keyblade wielders were here, only not saying what he expected.

He didn't feel surprised. He could only feel nothing.


End file.
